Padres' Manny Machado Sends Warning to Rest of MLB

The 2026 season has been extremely frustrating for San Diego Padres star Manny Machado, with him struggling to find any form of consistency at the plate.

Machado is currently on pace to have the worst season of his MLB career, which nobody saw coming from him at this stage in his career. The veteran did tweak his offseason work, and that has seemingly contributed to his problems at the plate this year.

Overall, Machado has hit .178 with 13 home runs and 41 runs batted in, while posting an OPS of .623. However, Machado has started to hit a little better over the last few games, including driving in five runs in a win over the Texas Rangers on Saturday.

Following the win, Machado sent a warning to the rest of baseball.

“The homers are there, the RBIs are there,” Machado said. “Key situations when I’m up there, you still gotta be afraid. I can do damage like I did today.

"It doesn’t matter, you see those numbers up there, you know, you see the back of my jersey and you’re gonna know who I am.”

Machado still has pop at the plate, even with his batting average well below the Mendoza Line. So while he has been struggling to hit, Machado still can change a game at any moment.

Manny Machado crushes a go-ahead homer in the 10th! pic.twitter.com/VqpvlHgc4N
— MLB (@MLB) June 20, 2026

If Machado can continue to put together solid at-bats at the plate, eventually he should break out of this slump. The veteran is far too talented of a player to stay down the rest of the way, and the Padres need him to get going.

His issues, combined with the struggles from other stars in the Padres lineup, have seen San Diego become one of the worst hitting teams in baseball. But Machado isn't giving up, and the support from his teammates only drives him to be better.

“Nobody wants to be in the position I’m in right now. You know, obviously, it sucks,” Machado said. “But yeah, man, I think everybody in here has my back, and it’s always powerful whenever you have guys like that, that are battling with you, and it makes the battle a little easier.”

The Padres coaching staff has been trying to work with Machado to turn things around all season long. Sooner or later, the tide needs to turn for the seven-time All-Star.

"The coaches are working every single day diligently, trying to find that one little solution that might unlock some of our perennial All-Stars that are struggling right now or unlock the offense in general together to be able to score some more runs," Stammen said recently.

The Padres will hope that Machado's decline didn't start earlier than they would have liked, and the first three months of this season are just an outlier.

All the Padres can do is hope for the best with Machado, considering that they still have him under contract for seven more seasons at $39 million each year.

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